


you don't know (what you're missing)

by disaster_tiefling



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Sort of a character study, this mentions things from throughout the whole balance arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 11:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12253305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disaster_tiefling/pseuds/disaster_tiefling
Summary: On the prime material plane, there are seven people who don't belong. 4 of them don't remember their past, 1 of them is trapped, 1 of them is trying to bring them all back together again, and 1 of them orchestrated everything.All of them are missing something.





	1. The Peacemaker

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting a fic, so I hope you enjoy it! I'll probably post chapters once a day since they're kinda short, but we'll see what happens.

There's a dwarf living in a comfortable, laid-back community. He knows this: he's got two wonderful kids, and a not-so-wonderful marriage. He loves his kids, he really does, but he just can't make his marriage work anymore. He can't explain it but it just... doesn't feel right. So one day he says "I'm going out for a walk."

And she says "Take all the time you want."

And he does. He leaves for a walk, and doesn't return. He keeps on traveling, telling himself that he wants to spread the word of Pan, that he's really going to help people with his healing. His travels take him all over Faerun, he sees so many new places and meets so many new people. Over time these adventures become less about Pan and he isn't quite sure why that makes his heart ache. Sometimes he doesn't get to someone in time, or his healing isn't enough, and they die. It makes him feel like a failure, because he should be better than this. He feels like he isn't worth much.

At one point he's hanging around in a tavern in a random small town. There's a couple of other people there, a man and an elf, that he feels drawn to for some reason, so when a job opportunity arises for the three of them he doesn't hesitate to say yes. He feels like he can trust these people.

_(He doesn't know that he trusts them because he already has for a hundred years. He doesn't know that he's already saved so many people on dozens of other planes, giving them healing or faith when they need it most. He doesn't know that he is doing just fine by his kids, that they love him no matter what, even if he left for a while. He doesn't know how vital he was to a century-long mission, and the twisted, broken man he once called his friend.)_

_(He doesn't know how important he was to a family he loved, but doesn't remember. He doesn't remember the brave gnome that loved him back.)_

Then he remembers everything he lost, and can't believe how he lived without it.

 


	2. The Protector

There's a man who lives in a quiet town, married to the most amazing woman and doing what he loves. He thinks he couldn't possibly be happier than he is right now. He isn't quite sure why he always goes back to carving ducks, but it makes him happy so he doesn't think too much about it. He loves his life.

Then someone threatens his home, creates a terrible regime that makes people suffer. He can't just stand by while people are in danger, he has to protect them, he feels like that's what he's supposed to do. He rallies the town and they fight, and they win. It's over and he can live happily. He thinks it's safe, so he goes to a woodworking showcase in Neverwinter. Everything is safe again.

How wrong he was.

His home has been destroyed, he couldn't do anything about it, and he doesn't know why this feeling of helplessness seems so familiar. Eventually he picks himself up and moves on.

He's thrown into a whirlwind of adventure with 2 people he's never met before, but knows deep in his gut that he has to protect. He gets reckless, rushes into things, and doesn't care if this might get him killed because at least they would be safe. He doesn't care if he dies because his family, everyone he loves, is dead. The three of them get recruited by a strange organization on a fake moon, and he knows he's never seen a voidfish before, but at the same time he feels like he has.

Much later, he remembers just a few things, things that scare him and make him feel like he can't trust this newfound group of friends he's managed to pull together and that  _hurts_.  He was a red robe, just like the one he's been told is their enemy this whole time, but he doesn't remember any of that. He dies, sort of, but he keeps going out of a sense of duty. He doesn't know what to do next, but he'll figure it out.

_(He doesn't know that those static-filled memories hurt because they were of his family. He doesn't know that the voidfish was part of that family for a while, and he's forgotten all the ducks he carved to make it happy. He doesn't know that the feeling of losing his home is so familiar because it has happened before, and he was so helpless then too.)_

_(He doesn't know that his urge to protect people was born from a hundred years of doing just that.)_

Then he remembers his family, and he has a purpose again.


	3. The Twins (Part 1)

An elf travels between cities on his very own caravan. It feels great because he remembers the caravans he joined when he was alone as a child, but those memories feel unclear. He shrugs that off and keeps smiling, cooking for a crowd that loves him.

Then everything goes south. He fucks up, and accidently poisons 40 people, losing the trust of the one person he thought he could count on. He’s alone again, like he always was before. He spends a lot of his time alone, always traveling from place to place out of necessity, but he can’t help but feel like something’s a bit off this time. He creates a loud, mean façade to throw people off the idea that he might be vulnerable. It’s his own form of defense against the world: nothing can get to him if he doesn’t allow it to.

Then he’s just sitting in a bar one day, internally berating himself for not being able to get one stupid transmutation right _gods he’s such a terrible wizard,_ when 2 other guys just up and ask him to join them on a job. It takes a bit, but he eventually decides to join them, they seem like ok company. He wouldn’t say he trusts them, he never trusts anyone anymore because it’s just not worth it.

He surprises himself with how long he sticks around. They get recruited by some sort of organization that he couldn’t care less about, but it’s something to do. Point is, he’s kind of got friends now and no matter how much his brain tells him to run, his heart is telling him to stay. He even casually mentions his night terrors (though he doesn’t mention that they are always of a guy he doesn’t know, but for some reason is begging to be killed).

He meets an annoying (yet slightly endearing) kid who wants to learn magic from him. Why would he want to learn magic from him, he’s obviously a terrible wizard, but the kid doesn’t seem to care and he finds himself agreeing. Then one day his staff gets a mind of its own and burns three letters into the wall - **L U P** – and he feels like his heart is being ripped out of his chest. He hides it well though, and the boy detective doesn’t even notice his reaction.

Then there’s Death himself. He flirts with him a bit, mostly for fun, but then there they are a few weeks later on a date. It was just supposed to be a meeting, but he found he enjoyed spending time with this guy. He was endearing. But something in his head is telling him it won’t last, people and relationships never last, and he tries to ignore it. What reason should he have to believe that people are dust?

_(He doesn’t know that he used to be able to trust and love people. He doesn’t know that people are going to actually stick around, and that he didn’t actually kill those 40 people. He doesn’t know that he was one of the best wizards from his entire home plane, because he doesn’t remember that he ever had a home in the first place. He doesn’t know why he can’t forget that guy he killed, or why they were both crying.)_

_(He doesn’t know that he’s missing the entire other half of himself, that he was never really alone.)_

Then he remembers, and he is whole once again.


	4. The Twins (Part 2)

An elf woman silently pulls on her robe in the middle of the night, careful not to wake her boyfriend. She’s got something important and dangerous she needs to do, but knows that if he wakes up and sees her, she won’t want to go. She writes a short note and presses a kiss to it before setting it down on the table. She pulls on her hood and picks up her staff, ready to go, but she hesitates as an overwhelming feeling of finality comes over her. She presses a soft kiss on her boyfriend’s forehead before she turns to leave just in case, but she tries not to worry about it. After all, she’ll be back soon.

Or maybe not, she corrects herself as she sits in a dark cave, feeling the poison spreading through her body. This wasn’t part of her plan, but that dwarf fell under the power of her stupid gauntlet, and now she’s dying. If this really is their last cycle, she won’t have a body, but maybe she can work on something later. But then, just as she is rising in her spectral lich form, she feels a sharp tug from her umbrastaff. Gods, why didn’t she think of that? She’s pure fucking arcane power right now, she should have built in a fail-safe. But it’s too late for that now, because she’s quickly sucked inside the staff.

She can’t sense much from inside the staff, the passage of time being one of those things, but she at least knows that her family is probably looking for her, and that they have no idea where she went. All she can do is wait and hope that something happens.

It’s been a while, nearly a decade she thinks, when she finally hears something outside the staff. Three all-too-familiar voices. Finally, they’ve found her, her brother is here, she’ll be reunited with her family. She launches one of them across the cavern because no, she needs her brother to pick up her staff. She’s a bit confused at why they don’t seem to recognize it, then even more confused when they talk as if they don’t know each other.

They don’t remember anything. Someone- she thinks she knows who- erased their memories of their pasts, and even her brother’s memories of her. The idea makes her want to scream. They’ve always had each other, but now she has to sit there while he suffers alone.

She tries to conserve her power so she can save her brother when he needs it, but sometimes she loses control a bit. At one point, she gets so angry she burns her name into the wall- useless, no one knows who she is except Lucretia. Another time, her brother is on a date with someone she suspects may be the Grim Reaper, which is fine. At least, up until he senses a lich- _her-_ and she freaks out, but luckily the wild shot she fires off is directed away from doing any harm.

Then the Hunger arrives. Her family has all remembered what they lost but they don’t seem to know where she is and she can’t think of a way to signal them. But then her brother tosses her staff to a young boy in the middle of a battle (she thinks it’s the same boy who was there when she burned her name into the wall), but when he attempts to cast some low-level spell, she takes over with the most spectacular fireball she’s ever cast.

_(She didn’t know what would happen when she went to retrieve her gauntlet. She didn’t know would be forgotten by her family. She didn’t know how to help them when they didn’t know she existed at all. She was trapped, hidden away from those she loves.)_

Then she is free, and finally reunited with her family.


End file.
